How to share, compare, compete with watchOS 3’s Activity rings

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Get set to test yourself to the limit with your Apple Watch.
Get set to test yourself to the limit with your Apple Watch.
Photo: Graham Bower/Cult of Mac

Apple Watch is getting a ton of new features this fall for fitness freaks, giving wearers the ability to not only track their own fitness better than ever, but also go head-to-head with other Apple Watch-loving friends.

With iOS 10 and watchOS 3, Apple Watch owners can share their Activity rings to view each other’s progress and compete to be fittest person in the clique. Here’s how to get started:

Share

Sharing in the iOS Activity app
Here’s where you add more people to your Share list.
Photo: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac

The most welcomed addition to the Activity app in iOS 10 is the ability to share your workouts with friends and family everyday and see their rings as well. You don’t even have to worry about sharing your exercise achievements daily because it all happens automatically in the background.

To start sharing with friends:

1) Open the Activity app on iPhone.
2) Tap the Sharing section at the bottom.
3) Press the + at the top of the screen.
4) Insert the person’s Apple ID email address and hit send.

Compare

iOS 10 Activity app Sharing screen
You can keep tabs on all of your friends’ workouts from the Share feed.
Photo: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac

Once someone accepts your sharing request, their Activity rings will appear in your daily Sharing feed that details how close each person is to hitting their daily Move goal as well as total calories burned. From this screen you can compare your progress with the data from all your Apple Watch-wearing friends to see who is the true fitness champ.

If you want to see who is put in the most time exercising for the day, you can change the Sharing feed to show everyone’s Exercise ring instead by tapping Sort at the top left of the Sharing feed. The app gives you the option to sort by Name, Move, Exercise, Steps or Workouts.

If you don’t want to see a certain friend’s daily Activity in your feed, you can hide it without removing them as a friend by tapping on their Activity ring and then hitting “Hide My Activity” on their profile page. You can also mute notifications and remove as a friend from this page.

Compete

The updated Activity app gives Apple Watch wearers some extra motivation to get off the couch and move because now all your friends can see when you’re being a lazy bastard. You don’t even have to break out your iPhone to get competitive. Simply go to the Activity app on watchOS 3 and swipe left on your Activity rings to go to the Sharing page.

apple-watch-sharing-watchOS
View Sharing details from Apple Watch.
Photo: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac

From the Apple Watch app, you can tap your friends to see the daily progress. If you see someone who’s been slacking for the day, you can engage in some friendly trash talk or send them a motivating message by scrolling to the bottom of their share page and tap Send Message. From there you can use watchOS 3’s new scribble-to-text feature, send a drawing, or your pulse during the peak of your workout.

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